A Place at the Table LAB studies and celebrates working farmscapes and the special foods they produce that have evolved over generations through the sustained interaction of land, water, climate, and human stewardship. They include large specialty crop landscapes like the Concord Grape Belt on Lake Erie (where 400+ vineyards supply much of our grape juice), to Indigenous heritage landscapes like the wild rice lakes of Minnesota, as well as more vernacular agricultural areas with strong regional food systems like San Juan Islands of Washington State that feature vibrant farm-to-table and farm-to-school programs, as well as multiple farmers markets and CSAs.

These resilient agrifoodscapes are complex and dynamic systems in which ecological processes and cultural practices co-evolve, giving rise to distinctive foods, rewarding livelihoods, and ways of life. Moreover, these places also serve as large reservoirs of Indigenous and local knowledge that is based on decades and sometime centuries of trial and error, longitudinal experimentation, and even citizen science.

The foods that emerge from agricultural heritage landscapes carry the imprint of their origins. They reflect not only environmental conditions, but the choices people have made—how selected breeding stock, design specific tools for production, and in some case codes of practice. In this sense, taste becomes a form of geographic knowledge. Understanding these relationships is central to the work of A Place at the Table LAB.

But some of these places are fragile and at risk, due to industrialization, climate change, globalization, and even benign neglect. By documenting, mapping, and calling attention to these remarkable agrifoodscape, the Lab seeks to make visible the connections between place, practice, and food—connections that are essential to the resilience of food systems in fast-changing world.